EA: Keauhou moorings likely won’t impact environment

KEAUHOU — The release of a draft environmental study brings the state one step closer in a controversial plan to install new moorings at Keauhou Bay.

Funding has already been allocated to a project that would take only a week to complete once the necessary approvals are in place, and the state Division of Boating and Ocean Recreation expects the project won’t have substantial impacts to the environment.

The moorings would increase from nine to 16 and was estimated to cost $450,000 in 2013.

That was the year the plan ran into a wall of opposition from Keauhou residents, many of whom said the expansion is out of touch with the recreational uses, limited space and sometimes rugged environment of the bay. The Keauhou Canoe Club sued in 2013 to force the state to complete the environmental study before moving ahead with installation of the moorings.

This week, the club’s president Bill Armer said the paddlers and a Keauhou Bay stakeholders group found the EA “sparse, shallow and without data to support their conclusions.”

“If it were to go through, that $720,000 in total cost would be $50,000 per mooring that nobody wants,” he said. “The study is faulty from the perspective of safety. We expect to challenge it and we’re disappointed in this first draft.”

Residents gathered more than 2,000 signatures opposing the plan in 2013. That opposition hasn’t gone away.

“It’s the same old thing; they’re not listening to any of us,” said Mindy Dant, whose family owns the Fairwind II and three other commercial vessels operating out of the harbor. “They want to treat the bay like a parking lot.”

Most of the new moorings would be concentrated on the south side of the bay, with slots for two 60-footers, two 50-footers, three 40-footers and nine 30-foot vessels, which could be moored without affecting water quality, consultants for Anchor QEA found.

But the plan contains a second alternative that would remove the nine existing moorings and place the same number on the south side of the channel, without adding to the total. A third option of no action would fail to address vessels that now encroach on the channel, according to the EA.

The 16 engineered moorings with 32 anchors would replace the aged, unpermitted and makeshift moorings already in place, and would organize the mooring grid to increase capacity. Some of the current moorings are undersized concrete blocks, some are in the navigation channel and one is a train wheel, consultant Finn McCall told residents last summer.

The configuration would avoid conflicts with the navigation channel and ensure continued use of the bay for non-motorized recreation like paddling, kayaking and snorkeling on the north side, consultants said. Being rid of the substandard moorings would also help protect coral, they said.

The plan aims to meet demand for increased moorings on an island and in a state where that capacity is sorely lacking, according to DOBOR.

Opponents see the plan entirely differently. About 50 people showed up at the last public meeting on the moorings in July 2015, and those who testified said the addition of boats would cramp the narrow waterway, increase pollution from bilges and put more vessels at risk of breaking away during heavy swells that sometimes roll into the bay. Some simply do not wish to see the birthplace of King Kamehameha III built up more than it already is.

The plan fails to adequately address westerly swell that can turn the bay into a washing machine, Dant said.

“It’s almost like a funnel, a really narrow, shallow bay,” Dant said. “When the swell comes in, it has nowhere to go. (DLNR Chair) Suzanne Case and the governor need to step up and have open ears, because this plan pretty much puts the state in liability.”

But Deborah Ward, spokeswoman for the state Department of Land and Natural Resources, said that Sea Engineering did study the wind and wave conditions at the bay.

“The EA does address inclement weather conditions and indicates that the mooring permits will include a provision for vessels to leave the bay during inclement weather conditions,” Ward said in an email.

A 30-day public comment period follows the release of the draft EA.

Info: http://oeqc.doh.hawaii.gov.